Microsoft Starts Ad Campaign Attacking Gmail Privacy

Microsoft Corp. will run a U.S.
advertising campaign urging consumers to drop Google Inc.’s
Gmail in favor of its own online e-mail services, stepping up
their rivalry for Internet users.

Television, print and online spots starting today will
feature the word “Scroogled!” in the colors of Google’s logo,
criticizing the operator of the world’s most popular search
engine of scanning the text of e-mail messages in order to
tailor ads to users.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, unveiled
Outlook.com in July to eventually replace its free online e-mail
service Hotmail. The company, whose Bing search engine competes
with Google’s is trying to gain more customers in the U.S.,
where Hotmail had less than half as many users as Gmail or Yahoo
Inc.’s online e-mail service, according to November data from
ComScore Inc.

The ad campaign includes messages such as “Think Google
respects your privacy? Think again,” and “Google goes through
every word of every Gmail that’s sent or received to sell ads.”
Microsoft says its online services don’t scan e-mails for
targeted ads.

Chris Gaither, a spokesman for Google, said no humans read
e-mail or account information in order to show ads or related
information.

“Advertising keeps Google and many of the websites and
services Google offers free of charge,” Gaither wrote in an e-
mail. “We work hard to make sure that ads are safe, unobtrusive
and relevant.”

Online Petition

Besides poking fun at Google with the first such nationwide
campaign from Microsoft targeting Gmail, Microsoft will also ask
users to sign a petition calling on the search engine to stop
scanning e-mail.

The campaign follows a “Don’t Get Scroogled” effort
targeting Google’s shopping services during the holidays, and
Microsoft’s Gmail Man video, in which a fictitious mailman reads
aloud from the letters he delivers and confronts a worker about
a medical condition in her office.